Raven McAllister is a resident of Louisiana and holds a degree in psychology.

      It was hard to reconcile with myself what was at the end of the field.
      One thing that was out there that particular day just after noon was one hell of an oncoming storm. The electricity in the house had already gone out, meaning the supercell lingering over our rice fields had already dished out some noteworthy fury. I peered out the window next to the front door, passively bumping my forehead against the glass. The rain hadn't arrived yet. Of course I didn't want to go out there now and finish the job I had carelessly given up yesterday. But Mom and Dad would be home from the riverboat that evening, and if I didn't get this done before the storm opened up, Dad would be incredulous. 'Lucas, we were gone two days!' he would exclaim in disbelief, his voice taking a higher, agitated pitch. 'You couldn't get six posts put up in two days?' What would follow would be exasperated sighs to my mother about how lazy I was. At sixteen, you could only take so much of that. Yeah, this had to be done, regardless of what was out there. Regardless of what the rain brought with it.
      My ears popped before I even opened the front door. That was always a surefire sign that something nasty was blowing in. On our small white porch I found the air outside to be typically thick with humidity, but ominously still. I snatched the post-hole diggers and mallet from where I had left them (intent on finishing later rather than sooner) leaning against the stone steps and propped them over my right shoulder. I wasn't exactly dressed for the rain -- a ratty black muscle tee and old blue jeans -- but that wouldn't be a problem if I got the last two posts up real quick-like, now would it? The truth was, though, that the rain wasn't what I found daunting. Rather it was the fact itself that it was going to rain, because that was when one could usually find old Mr. Johnson wandering about his open-face barn. The barn was right there on the other side of the posts (what would become our fence) at the very edge of the field where the open land receded into untouched pine woods. I just hoped I didn't run into Mr. Johnson, because I really didn't feel like chatting with him, as cruel as that sounds to me now.
      While I began my trot down the middle of our two expansive rice paddies I kept my head cocked upward in awe. Looming overhead was a blue-grey sea of impenetrable clouds. I had never seen them that low and that thick before (never since); they seemed to be intent on intimidating any sixteen year-olds that foolishly happened into their dad's rice fields. Thunder in the distance rumbled the ground around me, as if the root systems below were comprised of the subwoofers in the cars and trucks of the senior kids who occasionally sped down our lonesome road. The rice stalks moved ever so slightly, maybe not easing to and fro in the unperceivable wind as much as quivering in fear at the thrashing they would soon get. Another weaker roll of thunder followed suit. I hadn't seen any lightning yet, which was good.
      The bare grayish ground I paced was dry from weeks without rain. Rain was needed, and my dad would be happy about the storm, but storms like these always tore things up and it would be my fate to clean up afterward. I wondered for a moment if my father would congratulate me on the fine job I did of putting up the future fence posts, then decided this was a ridiculous thought. Congratulations? No. Critique? Yes. Inevitably always, yes. It was all about not slipping further into that pit; you could never climb out despite your best efforts, just cling hard and hope you did everything just right.
      Halfway there I latched my attention onto the barn. It was grown over for some years now, rusted in huge brown-red splotches along its metal exterior which played host to several vines of climbing jasmine. Mr. Johnson hadn't taken a machete or mower to the area in some time (not that he could have at that point, I suppose), and normally that would bother Dad. That happened with the Breauxs on one side of us when their lawn got too tall. My dad would make it a point to stand out in the yard with a beer in his hand and a judgmental eye on their property (my father's subtlety was unmatched). But you never heard a word about Mr. Johnson's property from him, nor did he send any clear messages that way. 'The man had a hard life,' he'd explain. 'I ain't gonna bother'em. And none of you should. Don't go harassin' over there, and don't ask questions.' That last edict was always the hardest to swallow in many ways. You see, there was always The Obvious Question out there, flashing in front of you like the lightning that was beginning to appear along the horizon of my trek. There was one uncomfortable way to attain the answer, and if you did somehow muster the guts to grab a hold of it, whose to say it would make any sense at all?
      From a limp nothing the wind picked up, blowing directly at my left cheek. It heralded cold spikes of water and didn't die away, but picked up gradually in strength. It took me a moment to catch my breath. Horizontal winds often were tell-tale of tornadic weather. 'Sideways means hide-aways,' Dad waxed from time to time.
      "Gonna feel bad if I get killed putting up your fucking posts," I muttered to myself. Then I could hear his half-joking response to this in my head. 'Well if you had gotten it done the first time...'
      I hadn't seen Mr. Johnson yet, which was at least one blessing. I supposed my dad may have had a point when he talked about the old man, though. Mr. Johnson's life had been laden with trials. His youngest daughter had died from cholera when she was a child, and his two sons rarely had anything to do with him before they moved out of Louisiana altogether. Annette Johnson, his wife of twenty-something years, had left him a decade back from that time. And of course there was 'the accident' -- whether or not it was indeed an accident was subject to debate. Through it all though, Mr. Johnson was always close to his wooded property, to nature in general as most old timers who grew up around here were. I guess that might be why he liked the rain so much.
      Nonetheless, I didn't like running into him. I had only once before, and that had proven to be beyond disconcerting. I was just glad my dad had been there at the end of the field with me. This time though I was alone.
      Somehow I had talked myself into the notion that this had something to do with manhood. After all, not everyone would come out here to this place in this weather under these circumstances to get the job done. No sir, not everyone.
      The field ended at an open 'T' of patchy grass and weeds. In front of me were the woods that lined the edges of Mr. Johnson's barn, and of course the structure itself. The four posts I had planted yesterday lined the property to my left. The two remaining posts lied next to their respective spots. I had partially dug one hole; this would be a matter of finishing that, planting post one, digging a second hole, and planting post two. No problem, except for the storm. Setting the post-hole diggers and myself over the half-dug hole, I went to work.
      By the time this cavity was emptied out enough, the rain had begun coming down in a legitimate pour. The digging didn't take too long, even with my constant glancing towards the barn and woods. After wiping my brow, I dropped the six foot rectangle down into its slot. I slammed it firmer in place with the mallet, covered it back up in muddying dirt at the base, and knocked it around some to test its stability. I had miscalculated the rain, but that was not my main concern. There had been no sign of Mr. Johnson. On to the next one I went.
      The topsoil was a little less packed thanks to the conditions, but beneath it the earth resisted the twin blades of the post-hole diggers stubbornly. It slowed things down, but a slight fear egged me on. The hole was starting to fill with water, and I wondered if this wasn't proper procedure for post hole digging, or digging period.
      "Boy!"
      I snorted rainwater right up my nose, gasping and jerking my head up. I hadn't heard him approach, but there he was, standing some ten feet away peeking around the side of his barn. I coughed as I gagged momentarily on the rainwater and snot, but said nothing after that. All I could do was stare. Not that I anticipate anyone could do anything else but that upon first seeing Mr. Johnson.
      "Said 'boy'! You deaf son?"
      "I…" came my initial attempt. "No, sir."
      He limped bow-legged away from the barn and a little towards me. This temporarily petrified me, but I let logic prevail: I could outrun this guy. Not that I should have worried about such things. I'm pretty sure of that.
      His thin arm and hand motioned at me.
      "Whatchoo doin' thar?"
      For a second I gazed down at the hole as if some sly son of a bitch had already dug it before I got there and slipped the double handles of the diggers in my hands.
      "I, um," I began, "I'm putting up fence posts."
      "Huh?"
      I swallowed and repeated, louder, but as nicely as possible. "Fence posts. My dad wants to fence up the field." I pointed with my thumb behind me out of nervousness.
      So there he stood, staring blankly, computing this. I wondered how much brain function he had left, and then figured if he had any at all at this point, why not all of it? What permeated my thoughts though was the great desire to ask The Obvious Question. I felt like if I tried to ask it, I would start to smile as if it were funny. One of those funny little obvious questions, neighborly chat, you know. I didn't ask it though. But I may have conveyed it with my eyes.
      Mr. Johnson, didn't you die?
      Mr. Johnson, or at least the thing that was at one point Mr. Johnson, rubbed its hand atop its head, the skin black and brown with rot. From his single right eye (the other side of his bald cranium bore a gaping chasm packed with what I believe was dirt) he regarded me like a toddler trying to understand the intricacies of a situation just beyond its ability to grasp.
      "A fence?" he said finally.
      "Yes sir," I responded quickly.
      Another moment of silence. Then he nodded, and turned away toward the field. I unparalyzed my actions by deciding the sooner I was done, the sooner I wouldn't have to be out in the rain talking to a dead man. Stabbing the ground with my implement, I concentrated as hard as I could on what I was doing. From the corner of my eye I watched Mr. Johnson, still staring out into the swaying rice stalks.
      Lawrence Johnson had been put in the ground four years ago, and I had been there to see it. Not only in the ground, but at a cemetery in the north part of town, some eight miles from our home. It had been a month or so after that that my dad first saw him. One day there had been someone lingering at the edge of the woods in the middle of a thunderstorm. Dad, who had been running the thresher through the field, parked the vehicle he was operating because of the rain, then came back to confront the trespasser on Mr. Johnson's vacated lot. Who he confronted was the property's owner. Dad didn't tell us about this until two years later when I had seen the old corpse wobbling about though an early winter rain. Dad and I were hanging out in Mr. Johnson's old barn sharing chew tobacco and discussing what to get Mom for Christmas. When he suddenly quieted, I followed his line of sight to the woods in front of the barn. A lonesome soul was hobbling our way. I was terrified. My father was calm.
      They exchanged pleasantries as though they were both regular guys just shooting the shit. He even made me say hello as I sat wide-eyed and wide-mouthed on an old bale of hay. There was no talk of the holiday season; instead there were observations about the weather, appraisals of how Dad's crop had been doing earlier that year, and comments about how big I was getting. Nothing remarkable was said by either. Not the whole time, ever.
      The hole was dug, so I dropped the diggers and bent over for the post. Glancing at Mr. Johnson, I saw he was looking up at the turbulent sky. The rain didn't seem to phase him. I rammed the pole down into its place, and worked it in further with the mallet.
      When I began to fill the hole, I started thinking about this whole situation, about how my father insisted that it be kept in the family. I looked at Mr. Johnson. I remembered Dad chatting with him, not saying anything of relative substance, not asking if there was a bright light after Mr. Johnson's shotgun blew a quarter of his own skull off during 'the hunting accident.' Just dancing around such issues. Just talking out of courtesy. 'The man could at least be given some of that, damn it,' Dad had declared. Eyeing Mr. Johnson with pity now, his lonely, decimated form slouched sullenly in front of the rice paddy, it was clear that Dad was right.
      The post was up and planted firm. I took a few breaths to calm myself, then gathered the tools. As I walked past Mr. Johnson, I slowed down. I asked myself why I stopped walking, thinking this could be really stupid. But predominantly I was thinking of the solemn creature behind me.
      Turning, I got his attention, which had been God-knew where.
      "Mr. Johnson."
      The solitary deformed eye skipped over the rows of rice and met my gaze.
      "Uh huh?" he grunted. I swallowed and wet my lips.
      "Take care."
      There was no immediate response, and I contained panic. What I said -- the implications of it, rather -- may have been too strong. Maybe. But he did answer. I remember the way the answer came with crystal clarity.
      The softening of his voice struck me hardest. It wasn't the forced monotones of an old man hard of hearing and gradually falling apart. It was either an attempt at gratitude or an uncontrollable show of despair. I still don't know which. I don't want to know which, frankly. I'm scared to.
      "Thank you. You too."
      I smiled for a brief second, but couldn't maintain it. I turned and continued my walk back down the windy, rainy path. But never again did I go back down that path when the grey clouds formed overhead. It wasn't out of fear. It was just a lack of a certain kind of courage.

© 2005 Raven McAllister